Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id582579882
On the one hand, checking an authoritarian threat like Trump requires independent action by key institutions. On the other, the very reason the authoritarian threat exists — Trump’s strong popular support in one of two major political parties — makes it hard for institutions to take definitive action.
✏️ His strong support with the people and having already stacked the judicial arm as well.. If they’re all skewed, there can’t be any legitimate checks and balances. Thinking about the diagram Faisal and I drew of the different parties a society would have (judiciary, government, people, media, and products/capitalists?) 🔗 View Highlight
id582579896
The institutions are both strong and weak. Strong in the sense that they are capable of coordinated action to defend democracy; weak in the sense that they lack sufficient bipartisan legitimacy to address the fundamental reason why democracy needs defense in the first place.
id582580288
one of the biggest is a much higher degree of underlying social polarization and conflict.
✏️ The issue in Israel and US, but not some others like south Korea. A divided populace living in extreme opposites can’t be united in ruling the country… Right? What if you had a socialist state where the people were divided? Could you even get to that point and situation? Would you have to divide the state altogether? 🔗 View Highlight
id582584176
Trump’s core support rests on a segment of the population alienated from the American mainstream, wedded to a vision for the country rooted in their angst about its changing ethnic composition and social norms.
✏️ I’d like to examine this further. What do you do with a segment that veers so far from the mainstream? #followup 🔗 View Highlight